I really enjoyed this book. It was different than anything else I've read recently. I couldn't put it down! I will keep an eye out for this author's future work!

You had me at a body a the seance!

Mabel, our heroine is on another case, helping a woman at a séance but then a body turns up at the seance and we are off on another murder mystery.

The plot moved quickly and the characters were well drawn out.

If you love a cozy mystery you will love this book.

It's out now so go check it out!

The second in a series
Our heroine Mabel is on another case, supporting a woman at a séance but things do not end as they should and she and her team of friends embark on another murder hunt.
I love the way that Mabel manages to work as well as solve murders and how the way that women are treated is shown through the story but I love the different characters in this series and how they work together to make things right.
Another mystery that came to a conclusion without me guessing but with just the right amount of clues.

A Body at The Seance is the second book in the London Ladies’ Murder Club series, a historical mystery series.

Mabel is a “modern woman” in 1921, single and in her 30s. She has come to London from a small town to make her way in the world. She lives in an apartment building and has made friends with some of the other residents, especially “Skeff”, Cora and Park. She works at a sort of temp agency of the time, the Useful Women’s Agency. The head of the agency, Miss Kerr, sends her on all sorts of jobs, and while working one of these, Mabel wound up helping to investigate a murder. Because of her success with that, Miss Kerr decided to add “private investigations” to the long list of things her Useful Women can do.

In this book, Mabel is hired to accompany a woman to a seance and, as you can figure out from the title, there is a death. Mabel is asked to investigate, along with the London police, although technically Mabel is investigating something else (I don’t want to spoil the story!) Mabel has an interesting “talent” - when she looks at someone’s handwriting, she hears music. And each person’s handwriting makes Mabel think of different sorts of music. Very interesting!

While I definitely enjoyed this one, it felt a bit slower than the first book. Perhaps it was because there were so many possible suspects to investigate? I love Mabel’s relationship with Cora and “Skeff”, two women who live together in her building. Skeff works as a journalist and her skills are helpful to Mabel’s investigations. Cora makes hats as a sideline to her regular job and her wide variety of hats help Mabel to semi-disguise herself at times. (I did find that the author kept referring to Cora’s “apple cheeks” too many times.) Park is a former Scotland Yard detective and it’s looking like he will be a romantic interest for Mabel, who worries that getting involved with a man will endanger her status as an independent woman. (Remember, this was the 1920s.) Park’s dog, Gladys, plays a big part once again. Among the new characters in this story, I particularly enjoyed Perkins.

Despite this book feeling a bit slow, I look forward to reading Mabel’s further adventures - the next book in the series will be A Body at the Dance Hall.

Thank you to Bookouture and NetGalley for the opportunity to read an advance reader copy of this book. All opinions are my own.

The second book in this delightful series. Mabel stumbles into another murder or two. One of the many things I love about this series is the delightful characters she meets along the way and those who assist. Gladys, Winstone’s sweet dog always adds extra joy to the story. A light hearted cozy mystery. Several twists and turns. I’m excited about the next in the series and already have it. I was blessed with a free advance review copy, and I am leaving this review voluntarily. Highly recommend.

Another enjoyable read in the London Ladies Murder Club series. I am enjoying the characters, and the mysteries have enough twists and turns in them to keep me guessing right to the very end. Mabel, the main character, is spunky and smart and is able to make her way as a single woman in a world not yet used to independence in women. The supporting cast in this series is also fun and supportive of Mabel and her investigations and makes the book enjoyable to read. I am looking forward to reading the next installment of this series.

I received an advanced copy of this book from Netgalley. All opinions are my own.

Delightful edition to this new cozy mystery series. The characters are engaging and fun to read. The setting is wonderfully depicted and makes you feel like you're really there. A must read for cozy fans!

The following review was posted on Kings River Life & News:

Cozy historical mystery fans will be delighted to learn about Marty Wingate’s latest series London Ladies' Murder Club that begins with book one, A Body on the Doorstep. Best of all, book two, A Body at the Seance is also available, so readers do not have to wait. I was happy to be able to immediately jump into the second book.

Book one opens in London,1921. Mabel Canning is an independent woman who has just moved to London from her small English village, determined to make it on her own. She rents her own flat and takes a job with the Useful Women’s Agency, which assigns jobs ordered by the gentlewomen of London. These jobs can range from picking up books from a shop to washing a muddy dog.

One day, Mabel is assigned to help wealthy widow Rosalind Despard with a wake for her husband who disappeared seven years ago, now legally determined deceased. Mabel hasn’t been there long when she opens to the front door to find a soldier's body on the doorstep. Scotland Yard is immediately summoned, but Mabel can’t help but be curious to find out who this young man was and why he was holding a letter for Rosalind, written by her husband the day he disappeared.

Mabel quickly becomes friends with Rosalind and with the help of Rosalind’s brother, former detective Park Winstone, and his terrier, Gladys, she begins to investigate. And the page-turning mystery takes off!

Book two, A Body at the Seance, picks up a few months later in November 1921. The Useful Women’s Agency has added an additional service, private investigation (that Mabel refers to as the London Ladies’ Murder Club). Here Mabel has been hired through the agency to attend a seance at the home of famous medium, Madame Pushkana. The lights are lowered and the seance begins, when suddenly there is a commotion and Mabel stumbles over the dead body of Stamford Plomley–the very man the seance was supposed to contact since he supposedly died in a fire eight months ago.

Mabel, along with help from Park and her wonderful upstairs neighbors take on the task of determining how Stamford died again and who is to blame. They leave no stone unturned, even when the investigation receives a threatening letter telling her to stop and more dead bodies appear.

Marty does such a wonderful job evoking the Golden Era of mystery. I felt as though I were walking the streets of 1921 London with Mabel. I found myself drinking more tea while reading and googling recipes for “seed cake.” The details of Mabel’s cozy flat and her delightfully quirky neighbors felt like meeting new friends I could solve mysteries with. Mabel’s desire to be an independent woman, balanced with her light romantic feelings for Park, gave great depth to her character.

Both books were wonderfully cozy treats, perfect additions to the cozy historical mystery genre. I’m anxious to get my hands on more in the series.

In the second outing in Marty Wingate’s London Ladies Murder Club series, Mabel Canning continues her work at the Useful Women's Agency as well as her propensity for tripping over dead bodies. With the help of her upstairs neighbors, and the former detective (and current love interest) downstairs, and to the chagrin of the local police, Mabel is soon investigating the first death of the man murdered at a séance that she attends.

Once again a lively mystery with Mabel doggedly pursuing the truth. A Body at the Séance is an entertaining follow-up to A Body on the Doorstep that is sure to please cozy 1920's mystery readers. Recommended.

This review refers to a digital edition that I voluntarily read via NetGalley, courtesy of the publisher. A positive review was not required and all opinions expressed are my own.

Whether or not one is a believer in spiritualism, the best one can hope for at a séance is a ‘message from the other side’ from the dearly departed. But no matter how much one believes, one absolutely does not expect the dearly departed to appear in the flesh. Even more miraculously, in the whole and entirely not desiccated or decomposing flesh – in spite of the dearly departed’s departure having taken place eight months previously.

However, one could not exactly say that reports of Stamford Plomley’s death had been greatly exaggerated – more that they were clearly premature eight months ago. Because the man is certainly dead now, strangled with the rope generally used to tie back the curtains that had so recently concealed his quite living body until the advent of the rope and whoever used it to bring about his delayed – or at least erroneously reported – demise.

And not that the world – and certainly Stamford Plomley’s widow Ivy – aren’t both better off with him firmly and finally deceased. However, that leaves both Scotland Yard and Mabel Canning, the head of the Useful Women’s Agency’s private investigations division with cases to solve.

Mrs. Plomley hires Mabel to investigate the circumstances of Stamford Plomley’s ‘first’ death, while Inspector Tollerton of Scotland Yard must look into the case of his second and more permanent one.

They will both have their hands full looking into the cult of believers who attended the séance conducted by the mysterious Madame Pushkana. A séance that was intended to bring Mrs. Plomley a message from the perhaps not-so-dearly departed – a message that was providentially – for someone – interrupted by a bit of flash paper and that rope around Mr. Plomley’s neck.

But if the late and not-so-lamented-as-was-originally-believed Stamford Plomley was killed with a rope in the séance room, when Madame Pushkana, the medium herself, is murdered by a knife in the back, backstage before one of her public ‘spiritual evenings’, both Inspector Tollerton and Mabel are forced to the realization that their cases have become uncannily close – and that someone is stalking their list of potential suspects.

Escape Rating A-: I couldn’t resist diving almost straight into A Body at the Séance so soon after the first book in the London Ladies’ Murder Club series, the charmingly murderous A Body on the Doorstep, because that book was just so much cozy mystery fun that I had to find out if the author managed to capture that lightning in the bottle a second time – even if said lightning jumped out of the bottle and killed someone new.

Which it did – in all the ways that the above can be taken as a pun. A Body at the Séance was every bit as much fun as the first book – if not just a teeny bit more because of the many ways that Mabel managed to hang onto her skepticism even as she found herself investigating an all-too-real murder that was just a bit over the top because of both setting and circumstances.

Watching Mabel unravel the murder while exploring her post-World War I London was just as charming as the first book – even if I did figure out whodunnit well before the final reveal.

What carried this second entry in the series, at least for this reader, was the intelligence and yes, charm, of Mabel herself. She’s easy for contemporary readers to identify with because, in spite of an entire century between her world and ours, her situation is so very similar to that of any independent woman determined to stretch her wings and make a place for herself on her own merits for the very first time in her life.

So Mabel is finding her way in what, for her, is intended to be a brave, new world, and it is. She’s got to earn a living, watch her expenses, find a new set of friends, new familiar places, and generally make her own way. She’s not rich, she’s not poor, she’s not in service, she’s from a comfortably middle-class background and has been given strong roots by her upbringing and wings from being finally able to make her own life.

And that’s a circumstance that many of us can identify with – with or without the ubiquity of social media.

That Mabel may have found an unexpected romance is just icing on a cake that she’s not sure she’s ready to eat. Because her independence is precious to her, she’s worked hard to reach it, and she’s not willing to fall back into the expected female role. She just isn’t sure yet whether the man she stumbled across in her first investigation will be able to accept her as an equal and not just as a wife.

She’s not willing to settle. And she doesn’t have to. Which makes her the kind of role model the world could still use more of.

So, as much as I came for the cozy murder mystery setting so reminiscent of the Golden Age of detective fiction, I’m absolutely sticking for Mabel Canning, her London Ladies’ Murder Club and the wonderful doggy assistance of the rather intelligent Gladys, because I’m loving every page.

Mabel, and her growing ‘Scooby Gang’, especially Gladys, will be back in April in A Body at the Dance Hall. As a child, I thought the old saying was “a new face on the BALLroom floor”, instead of what it really is. It looks like this time I’ll get to see my version come to life. Or, more likely, death, in just a couple of months.

Either way, I’m definitely looking forward to seeing how Mabel and her friends get to the bottom of their next case!

Favorite Quotes:

Tollerton gave her one of those policeman looks in which he searched for an answer to a question that wasn’t asked.

Nervous or excited. I suppose they’re much of a muchness.

Mabel saw the importance of having compassionate friends you could trust who knew other people who had friends. The circle widened from there, but it started here in her flat with these three friends whose value was greater than gold.

Mr Trenchard is never late… He makes his own time.


My Review:

I am enjoying this cleverly cobbled series, the uniquely contrived characters were sublimely nuanced and deviously detailed with perceptive observations that just weren’t quite complete and kept me ever curious for more. The little pea in my brain was rattling throughout while devising and casting aside multiple theories on “who done it.” And even as jaded as I am, I would have never reached the actual conclusion this wily scribbler had concocted.

This is the second London Ladies' Murder Club Book
Set in the 1920s it is well worth a look!
I read the first book several weeks before
And really looked forward to reading more.

Mabel Canning is hired to witness a séance
She isn't sure why, but she'll give it a chance.
A widow hopes she'll hear from her husband who
Died in a fire, so Mabel will listen, too.

A dramatic event, a flash and the lights go out,
A shout, mayhem, what's it all about?
The lights go on, but beware
A dead body - the widow's husband -is lying there!

How can he have died again?
Can anyone explain?
Definitely a case for Mabel to investigate
And find the killer before its too late!

For Mabel and her friends this is another enthralling case
With mystery, danger and suspense taking place.
If you enjoy historical cosy mysteries
I highly recommend you read this series!

For my complementary copy, I say thank you,
As I share with you this, my honest review.

Marty Wingate enthralls with A Body at the Seance, London Ladies' Murder Club 2. Mabel attends a seance to support Mrs. Plomley who wishes to communicate with her dead husband; instead her husband turns up as a corpse at the seance. Mrs. Plomley hires Mabel from Useful Women agency to find out how her husband died. Then the lady astrologer is killed. Many suspects, engaging helpers. Wonderful period mystery.

I’m thoroughly enjoying this new series by Marty Wingate, set in 1920s London. This second in the series finds Mabel drawn into the murder of an already dead man at a seance. The regular characters continue to grow in this one, as do their friendships and Mabel’s potential romantic relationship. The mystery is well-plotted and well-paced, and I look forward to the next installment. Thanks to NetGalley and the publisher for an advance copy in exchange for an honest review.

This was another great entry in the London Ladies’ Murder Club series, it had a strong mystery element. I enjoyed the cozy murder mystery element that was going on through this book, it worked with the first book. The characters worked in this time-period and I wanted to read more from this series and author.

A Body at the Séance is the second book in the London Ladies's Murder Club. I did read book 1 and you can read my review of A Body on the Doorstep. But you don't have to have read it to enjoy this book.

I listened to the audiobook for book 1 and read book 2 myself. On several occasions, I wished I had the audiobook for book 2. There are some series that I prefer to listen to the audiobooks for and I believe this is one of those series.

I like the characters in this series and I particularly liked the secondary characters in this book. I'm sad that it is unlikely for us to see them again.

Séances were popular in the 1920s. Sir Arthur Conan Doyle, author of the Sherlock Holmes stories, attended them and I've read that he organized one when Agatha Christie went missing. So to have a séance as the setting is appropraite for the time period.

I enjoyed the mystery - or is it mysteries? - the man in question apparently died twice.

It's fun due to the characters who make up the medium's inner circle. I did suspect early on who the culprit was though I couldn't guess the motive.

If you are looking for a fun historical cozy mystery, or a series to listen to, then you should pick up this book.

My review is published at Girl Who Reads - https://www.girl-who-reads.com/2024/01/a-body-at-seance-by-marty-wingate-review.html

This story involving Mabel Canning our amateur sleuth, and Jack of all trades has solved her first crime, and is now embroiled in her second. At a seance, a man who was dead for several months is found murdered during the seance with very little clues left for the Police to follow. Mabel has been part of the group who follows the seance leader, and has more insight into the group of characters than the Police can ever hope to achieve. When Madame herself is found murdered, Mabel knows that time is limited as the murderer is becoming nervous that she is going to confront him.

Good deduction, painstaking detective work, a touch of romance in a classic vintage style and setting this was a delightful old fashioned read.

A lot of murders seem to happen at Seances.. Needless to say though, it is not usually a person already presumed dead!!]

Another fantastic addition to this series that is turning out to be so fun and interesting! Of course when Scotland Yard arrives to take control of the investigation, Mabel ends up working with Park to figure out the clues!

I intend to listen to this on audible because I love hearing the story play out!

This was the second book in the London Ladies' Murder Club series. I thought Mabel was a great protagonist in the previous book, so I was pleased to see her back. This time, there was a slightly spooky theme, as the storyline included a séance. This was another entertaining cosy mystery set in 1920s London, and I would recommend this series to cosy crime fans.

Thank you to NetGalley and the publishers for a free copy to review.

Title: A Body at the Séance
Author: Marty Wingate
Genre: Mystery
Rating: 4.2 out of 5

When a body turns up at a glamorous séance, Mabel Canning’s sleuthing skills are put to the test. Because it appears the victim died twice…

London, 1921: As a winter wind blows through the streets of London, Mabel Canning is hired by the Useful Women’s Agency to attend a séance at the home of famous medium Madame Pushkana. But when Mabel hears a choking noise and a loud thud, she quickly turns on the lights to find herself at the scene of a murder.

The victim is none other than Stamford Plomley, whose widow arranged the séance after he died in a fire eight months ago. How did he come back from the dead without a scorch mark on him? And could one of their assembled party of gentlewomen have killed him… again?

When Scotland Yard arrive, the police try to stop Mabel from interfering. But having just formed the London Ladies’ Murder Club, Mabel isn’t going anywhere. And with the help of former detective Park Winstone, she begins to piece together what really happened at the ghostly gathering.

But when Mabel receives a threatening letter warning her to stay away from the case, she realises the murderer may have another victim in mind. With time running out, will she hit a dead end? Or can she keep herself from becoming the next one to be sent to an early grave?

This was a fun read! I think I enjoyed this more than the first book in the series. The characters felt a little more real to me, especially Perkins: I absolutely loved him and would like to see more of him. I didn’t have any idea who the murderer was, so that was a big surprise, and all of Mabel’s investigations were a lot of fun to read. This is a great series!

Marty Wingate is a bestselling author. A Body at the Séance is her newest novel.

(Galley courtesy of Bookouture in exchange for an honest review.)

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